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ONTAP upgrade overview

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When you upgrade your ONTAP software, you can take advantage of new and enhanced ONTAP features that can help you reduce costs, accelerate critical workloads, improve security, and expand the scope of data protection available to your organization.

A major ONTAP upgrade consists of moving from a lower to higher ONTAP numbered release. An example would be an upgrade of your cluster from ONTAP 9.8 to ONTAP 9.12.1.  A minor (or patch) upgrade consists of moving from a lower ONTAP version to a higher ONTAP version within the same numbered release. An example would be an upgrade of your cluster from ONTAP 9.12.1P1 to 9.12.1P4.

To get started, you should prepare for the upgrade. If you have an active SupportEdge contract for Active IQ Digital Advisor (also known as Digital Advisor), you should prepare to upgrade with Upgrade Advisor. Upgrade Advisor provides intelligence that helps you minimize uncertainty and risk by assessing your cluster and creating an upgrade plan specific to your configuration. If you don't have an active SupportEdge contract for Active IQ Digital Advisor, you should prepare to upgrade without Upgrade Advisor.

After you prepare for your upgrade, it is recommended that you perform upgrades using automated non-disruptive upgrade (ANDU) from System Manager. ANDU takes advantage of ONTAP’s high-availability (HA) failover technology to ensure that clusters continue to serve data without interruption during the upgrade.

Note Beginning with ONTAP 9.12.1, System Manager is fully integrated with BlueXP. If BlueXP is configured on your system, you can upgrade through the BlueXP working environment.

If you want assistance upgrading your ONTAP software, NetApp Professional Services offers a Managed Upgrade Service. If you are interested in using this service, contact your NetApp sales representative or submit NetApp's sales inquiry form. The Managed Upgrade Service as well as other types of upgrade support are available to customers with SupportEdge Expert Services at no additional cost.